The proliferation of cloud-based services and platforms continues to increase. Specifically, cloud-based shared content storage systems have impacted the way people and corporations store their electronically stored information objects (e.g., files, images, videos, etc.). The availability of cloud-based shared content storage systems has also impacted the way such personal and corporate content is shared. One benefit of using such cloud-based systems is the ability to share secure content (e.g., strategic documents, product specifications, financial statements, etc.) without necessitating delivery of unique copies of the content to each of the unique users (e.g., employees) in the audience. In some cases, however, such secure content can be disclosed (e.g., leaked, whether by accident or with malicious intent) by means of an unmonitored sharing (e.g., screen capture) of the object being viewed. For example, a confidential presentation might be shared for online, read-only viewing, and a viewer in the audience might capture one or more slides presented (e.g., using <print screen>, a screen capture tool, a photo, etc.) for disclosure to various third parties (e.g., unauthorized parties). In some cases, the captured content might be later discovered, and often in such cases, the content owners might want to determine the source (e.g., perpetrating employee) of the leak.
Various legacy techniques have been implemented to provide security to documents. Some legacy techniques insert or overlay a watermark on a document to visually indicate a level of security (e.g., “confidential”), and/or to indicate a level of authenticity (e.g., “official copy”). Such techniques, however, do not provide a means to track the source of inappropriate (e.g., illegal, unauthorized) dissemination of the content. Further, such techniques are perceivable by the human eye, and can be readily defeated. For example, a “Confidential” watermark can sometimes be removed using an imaging editing tool. What is needed is a way to embed identifying information (e.g., an employee's name or ID) into content objects (e.g., images, video, text, etc.) such that the embedded identifying information appears in the image (e.g., as hard-to-remove “noise” in the image)—yet is not perceivable by the viewer. The embedded identifying steganographic information needs to be recoverable by computerized techniques, even though the human-perceived visual quality of the image is not negatively impacted. Further, the embedded and hard-to-remove “noise” in the computer-readable image needs to remain intact in all of the misappropriated (e.g., leaked) portions of the protected objects that may proliferate through electronic networks such as the Internet.
The problem to be solved is therefore rooted in technological limitations of the legacy approaches. Improved techniques, in particular improved application of technology, are needed to address the problem of discovering the source of leaked content that has been disclosed in the form of a screen capture of the content. The technologies applied in the aforementioned legacy approaches fail to achieve sought-after capabilities of the herein disclosed techniques for detecting disclosed content sources using dynamic steganography. What is needed is a technique or techniques to improve the application and efficacy of various technologies as compared with the application and efficacy of legacy approaches.